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The huge problem at the extreme end of offenders found not guilty by reason of insanity — diluted today as “not criminally responsible” — is that most need equally extreme doses of antipsychotic drugs to anesthetize their inner demons.

Left on their own, however, and this comes from various psychiatrists and defence counsels, many would rather have their demons than live in a drug-induced fog devoid of emotion.

So, that being the case, prison is where they truly belong.

It certainly removes the what-ifs.

As Stephen Hucker, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, recently told The Globe and Mail, “nobody has a perfect instrument to determine whether someone is a future risk.”

He’s right, but he is also wrong.

There is a perfect instrument, and it is called a maximum-security prison, preferably in a cell in the protective custody wing.

It may not “determine” if the offender is a future risk, but it will certainly deter him from becoming one.

And, for once, it will put public safety first.

Near the end of November, federal Justice Minister Robert Nicholson, flanked by Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, whose daughter was kidnapped, raped and murdered 10 years ago by a repeat offender, announced the Harper government would introduce legislation to make it more difficult for high-risk NCR “patients” to gain their freedom.

The wisdom of this, however, was lost on many in the mental health industry.

Last May, while I was in Winnipeg hosting the Charles Adler Show on the Sun News Network, the Manitoba review board decided to grant mentally ill killer Vince Li escorted passes from the Selkirk Mental Hospital, he being “not criminally responsible” for murdering and beheading fellow Greyhound bus passenger, 22-year-old Tim McLean, in 2008 and then cannibalizing various body parts.

Granting him this freedom seemed ludicrous, but it happened. Here was a man responsible for one of the single most gruesome and cold-blooded murders in Canadian history, and the shrinks thought the public’s safety will not be threatened or put a risk with Li walking unshackled through town.

Well, so far so good.

Meanwhile, as Tim McLean’s mother, Carol de Delley, told me during an interview for the Adler show, she is left to battle the nightmares of what happened to her son, finds herself abandoned by the system to seek therapy on her own, all while her son’s killer is treated with kid gloves as if he has a value far beyond the worth of her child.

What was just as ludicrous, however, was the testimony of Vince Li’s psychiatrist, who, as if his word were infallible, told the review board that Li had a 0.8% chance of reoffending.

No one can be that precise about the time the sun will set, let alone when a mentally loose cannon will explode once again. Yet he insisted it was true — a 0.8% chance.

That, too, is insane.

There are mental-health experts who will insist toughening the release parameters of high-risk NCRs goes against attempts to de-stigmatize mental illness.

This is ludicrous as well.

Vince Li is not a low-risk, run-of-the-mill NCR where understanding and sympathy should be extended in order to relieve the stigma of other schizophrenics dealing with lesser demons.

Instead, he is one of those rare, exception-to-the-rule, high-risk schizophrenics who, for the safety of the public, needs to be caged for the rest of his life, and the reasons for his incarceration explained to the public as righteous.

Who would argue this except for those among the psychiatry profession who believe they can magically rearrange the minds of the deranged?

There will be those who will insist the mentally ill harm themselves more than they harm others, and this may be generally true.

But this is not true of Vince Li and his ilk.

He, in particular, is one of those exceptions who should not be trusted until his own heart stops beating.

Putting public’s safety first

Violent, mentally ill offenders should be locked up in maximum security prisons

The huge problem at the extreme end of offenders found not guilty by reason of insanity — diluted today as “not criminally responsible” — is that most need equally extreme doses of antipsychotic drugs to anesthetize their inner demons.

Left on their own, however, and this comes from various psychiatrists and defence counsels, many would rather have their demons than live in a drug-induced fog devoid of emotion.